Ready to Die

  He flinched at that.

  “Life is short, Cade. We don’t know what’s around the corner, and the girls need someone in their lives besides me, and an aunt who doesn’t care a lick about them, not really, and a grandmother who’s battling cancer. They need you, Cade, yes, just like they sure as hell need me.”

  “So you expect me to just stay in the shadows? Pretend that I’m still just their uncle for the next five or six years, and then when they’re into puberty and boys and God knows what else, spring it on them that I’m their father? How do you think that’ll go, huh? If anything, it’ll cause another rift so deep it might not be bridged for years, if then. They’re eight now. Better they find out the truth now, so that by the time they get to junior high, when kids can be really cruel, they’ve already dealt with it. They’ll be used to the situation and so will all the other kids. The gossips in this little town will have moved on to other, juicier, fresh grist to run through the rumor mill.”

  “So, what? You want to go back to my house and make the announcement?”

  “Yep, I’ll bring dinner.”

  “I was joking.”

  “I know.”

  She stared at him. “I’m not ready for this.”

  “I am,” he said. “And who knows? They might just say, ‘We want to spend the night with Daddy.’ Then you can pack them up and send them on their way to the ranch with me.”

  She almost laughed. “That’s not going to happen. What do you know about taking care of eight-year-olds?”

  “I’m a quick study.”

  “What’re you going to do when Mallory wakes up with nightmares, or McKenzie gets one of her wild hares and takes off?”

  “I can deal.”

  She snorted, worried that she’d just made the worst mistake of her life. And that was quite a feat considering all of the blunders she’d racked up over the years.

  He took a step closer to her. “You can’t have it both ways, Hattie. Either I’m in or I’m out. And you’re the one that let me in, so, like it or not, there’s no turning back. Now, I’m going to visit my kids. You coming?” He climbed into his truck, fired the engine, and waited.

  At least he didn’t drive off in a spray of gravel and ice, she thought as she anxiously followed him to her place. She parked in the garage while he found a spot on the street, right behind Zena’s Caddy. They met at the front door.

  “Okay,” she said, her nerves tight. “But we’re not telling them anything tonight, right? For now you’re still Uncle Cade.”

  He hesitated.

  “It will be confusing for them, so we need to take it slow. Ease them into it.” She could hear their questions already.

  What about my real dad?

  Aren’t you still my uncle?

  How can you be my uncle and my dad?

  “Fine, for tonight,” he agreed. “But before this year is out, we’re going to broach the subject.” As he stood under the porch light, his features set, she saw the tight line of his jaw. There was no turning back. Cade was determined to step into the role of fatherhood, which was what she’d wanted, right?

  They headed into the house and the girls, who had been coloring in front of the television, suddenly looked up and screamed in delight. Markers and crayons flew every which way as they flung themselves at their “uncle.” He swung them each deftly off their feet, giving them each a quick hug before planting them back down. Hattie could hardly watch as, completely ignoring their mother, they giggled and laughed, vying for Cade’s attention before he could even take off his coat. “More!” McKenzie cried, practically jumping into his arms again. A lump filled Hattie’s throat as she watched him with them. Already they adored him, and the feeling was obviously mutual. Her eyes burned. This was so right, yet it could have far-reaching consequences for her.

  Clearing her throat, she said, “Hey, girls, give your uncle a break,” as she slipped out of her coat and left her boots by the front door.

  “He’s not our uncle,” Mallory said with that superior know-it-all attitude that was just beginning to bloom and really get under Hattie’s skin.

  “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.

  Zena appeared from the kitchen. Wearing an apron, an apricot-colored wig, and a smile that seemed painted on, she said, “I’m the culprit!”

  “You took it upon yourself to tell them?” Hattie was aghast.

  “So it’s true?” Mallory asked eagerly.

  “Mom! What were you thinking?” Turning to her daughters, she said, “Uh, yeah. From now on Cade is your daddy.”

  “Did you get married?” McKenzie asked.

  “No, we’re not getting married.”

  “But then how come he’s our daddy now?” McKenzie’s little face twisted into a knot of concentration.

  “Mommies and daddies don’t have to be married,” Mallory said. “Neva’s mom and dad are divorced and so are Charlie’s. He’s got a new dad.”

  “That’s right. Families can be pretty mixed up. Look at Aunt Cara and me. We have different fathers,” Hattie said desperately, shooting Zena a dark look.

  “What about our real daddy?” McKenzie asked.

  “He’s dead, dummy! That’s why we need a new one!” Mallory had it all figured out.

  Hattie chastised her daughter, “Mallory, don’t call your sister names.” To Cade, she added, “Uh, you talk to the children, I need a word with my mother.” Hustling Zena into the kitchen where a pot of bean soup was simmering on the stove and a pan of corn bread cooled on racks set near the window, she said in a low, furious voice, “I can’t believe you did that!”

  “It’s time the girls know who their father is.”

  “But, Mom, you had no right! This was for me to decide.”

  Picking up a wooden spoon lying in a holder, she stirred the soup, turning the beans from the bottom of the kettle. “It’s been nine years of lies, Hattie, and I, for one, don’t have any more time for this.”

  “You’re so wrong about this.”

  “Maybe. Call me ‘selfish’ or a ‘meddler’ if you want, I deserve it. But I need to leave this earth knowing that my family is settled.”

  Dread crawled up her spine. “What’re you talking about?” she asked, even as a cold awareness was taking hold of her. And then she saw the quiver of Zena’s jaw and the tissues that had been used and wadded before being tossed into the trash. “Mom? What is it?”

  “I got the call today.” She touched her cell phone lying faceup on the counter and took a deep breath to steady herself. “It’s the cancer. It’s grown, honey.”

  “No, don’t say it.”

  But, as usual, her mother ignored her. “According to the doctor, there isn’t much more they can do.”

  Chapter 30

  “Are you out of your friggin’ minds?” Brewster roared, the veins in his neck protruding, his face a nasty shade of red that was turning purple. “What the hell were you thinking, going out into the woods half cocked with some asinine theory about Verdago? All because of a damned picture from a traffic cam?” Standing over the desk in the office he’d claimed, he was dressed in full uniform, leaning forward, obviously expecting Pescoli and Alvarez in their visitor’s chairs to cower.

  Pescoli wasn’t giving an inch and neither, it seemed, was Alvarez as they tried to explain themselves. The door to the office was closed and the room felt suddenly foreign, a sterile place without Grayson’s easy demeanor, without his dog, and definitely without his class.

  Pescoli argued, “This was good info.”

  “It was thin,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Very thin. You can’t even tell if the driver really is Verdago. His passenger is unidentifiable, and even if it was Verdago and his girlfriend, they could be in Canada by now, or Oregon, or, hell, halfway to Mexico. What the hell made you think they would end up in Samuels’s cabin? This was outrageous action on faulty data.”

  She wanted to throw it all back at him, but no matter what she said, he had an answer.

 
“And you know what?” he railed. “It all backfired. Worse yet, I have no idea what the fuck you did to piss Manny Douglas off, but tomorrow, come hell or high water, the Mountain Reporter is printing a story about eight of my officers, eight deputies and detectives on the public payroll, making a huge blunder that will cost the county thousands of dollars to what? Run a poacher in? The only reason it hasn’t cost us more money is that the department’s bending over backward in the hope that Vincent Samuels doesn’t make a stink. Vincent Samuels. Did you all forget that he’s the judge’s brother, one of the bereaved? He didn’t even know that he’d lost his sister, and you two, along with six others, go in, weapons drawn. Son of a bitch!” He kicked the air in frustration.

  Pescoli had never seen him so angry, so worked up. She’d always thought he’d had somewhat of a level head, except when it came to her son and his daughter, of course. Those times when she had witnessed his agitation, it had been intense, his temper blasting hot when it came to his kid. However, at the office, he’d been able to control his emotions.

  Not today. Not now that he was in power.

  He threw a look at the ceiling, as if hoping God Himself would intervene.

  “Samuels is talking about getting a lawyer, you know, for all his pain and suffering. They’ll drum up other charges, too, starting with there was no warrant and that there was no reason to think anyone was in danger out there, or a crime was being committed, or whatever. It won’t stop there, let me tell you. Some hungry attorney wanting to make a name for himself might just take his case and either way, the department will have to deal with the consequences!” He glared down at Pescoli with pure hatred. “This is on you, Pescoli.” Then his attention moved to Alvarez. “You, Detective, should know better. She’s always flown off the handle, breaking or bending any rule that got in her way, but you, you’re supposed to be the cool head.”

  “I’m with Pescoli on this one,” Alvarez said tightly.

  “Then you’re both idiots!”

  His phone rang and he dismissed them with a sharp wave of his hand.

  “That was fun,” Alvarez said once they were in the hallway and walking to their offices.

  The shifts had changed, most of the officers who worked days having left, the night crew settled in. Still there were voices and the hum of computers, ringing phones, and the glow of interior lights that kept the station abuzz with activity long into the night.

  “Maybe we were too quick to pull the trigger,” Alvarez said as they reached Pescoli’s office. Closing her eyes, she shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe the image she was seeing in her mind’s eye. “A damned elk.”

  “If it weren’t so pathetic, it would be funny,” Pescoli said heavily. She inwardly cringed as she recalled walking through the small cabin, her weapon raised as she checked all the rooms and closets, and even the crawl space and tiny attic, all the while hoping to flush out Maurice Verdago and put the case to rest. She’d checked the garage, too, and sure enough, the huge carcass of a bull elk had been hung from the rafters. Just seeing the skinned animal suspended from a hook had made her stomach lurch. Fired up on adrenaline and then the ultimate humiliation for being so damned wrong, she’d nearly upchucked right then and there.

  Fortunately, Manny Douglas didn’t get that reaction on film. How had she read the case so badly? For the love of Christ, Vincent Samuels, oddball loner that he was, hadn’t even known that his sister had been shot and killed.

  “You won’t think it’s funny when the story runs tomorrow morning,” Alvarez said. “I can see the headlines now: county sheriff department searches for murderer, finds dead elk.”

  “Accompanied by the picture of us holding the judge’s brother at gunpoint?” Pescoli considered the public reaction and the fact that every TV station within a hundred miles would want to delve deeper into the story. Already she’d ignored a call from Honey Carlisle from KBTR and another one from Nia Del Ray of KMJC, a rival station, both reporters obviously having tapped into the police band. The newspaper article in tomorrow’s paper was just the tip of the iceberg.

  “Yeah,” she said as she peered into her darkened office where she’d left her Big Gulp with its flattened straw. “It’s going to be great.”

  Alvarez looked tired as all get out. “Look, I need a break and I’m taking it. This really messed with me today, and O’Keefe and I are getting together tonight, alone for the first time in a while. But if you need me for anything, my cell will be on.”

  “You’re safe. I think I’ve used and abused enough of the staff for the day,” Pescoli said.

  Alvarez snaked a glance into the direction of the sheriff’s office. In a low voice, she confided, “O’Keefe said if we need some extra help, you know, the kind that isn’t . . .”

  “Legal?”

  “I was going to say ‘orthodox.’ If we want that kind of assistance, he offered his services.”

  Pescoli was tempted; it would be so nice not to play by the rules or deal with the likes of Brewster. She’d screwed up more times than she’d like to remember in her career, but never had it been the kind of screaming dressing down that she’d just experienced with the acting sheriff. Brewster was a head case pure and simple. So he had a pristine record in law enforcement; that didn’t mean he was a great guy. In his case, far from it. And she felt badly that she’d dragged Alvarez and all the other officers into her own personal hyped-up mess. She’d been so eager to nail the son of a bitch who’d shot Grayson, she’d misread the signs, and now everyone, not just she, was paying the price.

  “I think we’d better play this one by the book,” she said. “We want to nail Verdago before he gets another crack at the sheriff or anyone else.”

  “You still think it’s him?” After the day’s debacle, Alvarez sounded skeptical.

  “Got any better ideas?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me neither,” Pescoli admitted, and that was what really ticked her off. Outwardly, she acknowledged she’d screwed up. Inwardly, she seethed, her gut telling her she was right, that Verdago was the guy.

  But she couldn’t figure out how, despite another couple of hours going over reports, info, and maps of the area. Brewster could deny it all he wanted, but the picture taken by the traffic cam was Verdago. Pescoli would stake her badge on it.

  Still without answers and stung by her enormous mistake, she drove home nearly two hours later. As she’d reconstructed what went wrong today, writing it into the report she’d hand to Brewster in the morning, she’d also sought to come up with another avenue. But each mental path she traveled down, each new possible scenario she explored presented a major roadblock.

  The suspect list had narrowed.

  Grayson’s brothers had no beef with him, or the judge. Cara Banks didn’t seem to have any real animosity toward her ex, and Pescoli had already crossed her off as having the desire or wherewithal to hire an assassin. Besides, why would she knock off the judge in the process? The same went for Akina Bellows, wife number two. The dating angle hadn’t been proved or disproved, but she couldn’t find any evidence linking Grayson and the judge romantically, and even if there were an affair, who would care enough to try and take them both out? Yes, the judge had called the station over the past few months, but that wasn’t all that out of line.

  So she buried that old theory as well.

  Which left the people they’d sent up the river and right at the top of the list, without the alibi most of the other ex-cons had come up with, was the missing Maurice Verdago.

  A headache was pounding behind Pescoli’s eyes and she once again had the nagging thought that she was missing something . . . something important, and right under her nose, but whatever it was, she couldn’t quite grasp it, even though she concentrated so hard that she nearly hit a rabbit that hopped into the road in front of her car, hesitated, then turned quickly, missing her tire by inches as it disappeared into the icy brambles flanking the road.

  Resler, Cranston, and Gardener all had r
ock-solid alibis.

  Swearing under her breath, feeling her stomach begin to act up again, she turned into the long lane of her home. Recent tire tracks suggested Jeremy was home. She crossed the single-lane bridge to round a final bend and spy her house sitting in its clearing. The Christmas lights strung on the eaves were glowing, aside from one strand that had decided to give up the ghost, but Jeremy’s truck, usually parked out front, was missing.

  Huh.

  For a second she thought someone was watching her, that same eerie sensation that had prickled her skin when she was alone and created the nightmares that ruined her sleep. Was it possible that whoever was following her had come here for her children?

  For the love of God, check your paranoia at the door.

  As she drove into the garage, she had one hand on her sidearm, her adrenaline pumping in spite of herself. Then she heard the dogs starting to make a ruckus and Bianca’s voice: “Hey! Hush! Calm down. Cisco, you troublemaker!” The smaller dog continued to yap while Grayson’s Lab quieted immediately.

  She returned her gun to its holster and breathed a long sigh of relief.

  Get a hold of yourself, Pescoli. You are doing no one, including yourself, any favors with all these mind games.

  Once inside the house, she greeted both dogs and found Bianca sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of soda and a small bag of some kind of chip at her fingertips as she read on her new e-reader and somehow still was able to text on her phone.

  At least she was interested in some kind of food. “Hi,” she said, actually looking up.

  “Hey.” Pescoli dropped her things on a nearby chair and hung her coat on the hall tree near the door. “What’s up?”

  “I’m eating. See.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Her daughter sent her a dirty look, snagged a chip, and snapped it between her teeth.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “Take a wild guess,” Bianca suggested, then before Pescoli could make a stab at it, said, “He hooked up with Heidi tonight when we went to get dinner. I think it was a setup.”